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March 19, 2009
The Real Reason Behind Bailout Misuse
In the past week there have been a number of stories implicating the major recipients of the bailout plan of distributing its rewards to its higher executives. AIG, the struggling insurance corporation that received at least $170 billion in the bailout, has reportedly spent almost 10% of that money on bonuses and compensation. (CNN)
Mortgage Finance Company Fannie Mae plans to pay $611,000 each to key executives this year in order to ‘keep the employees who know best how to escape this recession from leaving their current positions’. Rival company Freddie Mac has disclosed the amounts paid to their highest executives, who will receive at least $470,000 on top of their base salary; almost double what they received last year. (Alan Zibel - Associated Press)
Today, a report came out indicating that “Citigroup Inc. plans to spend about $10 million on new offices for Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit and his lieutenants, after the U.S. Government injected $45 billion of cash into the bank.” (Erik Schatzker - Bloomberg)
With a pattern of misuse of the taxpayers money by the bailout recipients, the recent public condemnation of AIG for their misuse of bailout money, and these companies’ continued disregard for the taxpayers concerns, the question on everyone’s mind is: Why don’t these corporations learn?
The answer lies with the proponent of the bailout itself: Barack Obama.
The elections of 2008 shattered previous records of campaign costs with the Presidental and Congressional elections costing roughly $5.3 billion. Obama singlehandedly tied both candidates’ campaign expenses from the 2004 election with $800 million spent on his 2008 campaign. Both parties had raised approx. $1.5 billion, double the amount collected in 2004. (Ewen MacAskill - The Guardian)
Where did the candidates, primarily Obama, receive this money? Wall street. The Times Online reports, “Despite the financial crisis, Wall street firms make the lion’s share of donations, along with real estate and insurance companies. Between them they gave $370 million and the top corporate donor was Goldman Sachs." (Tim Reid - The Times Online ).
These banking conglomerates, insurance moguls, and real estate companies are all linked together under the banners of the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group.
The Trilateral Commission states on their website, “The Trilateral Commission was formed in 1973 by private citizens of Japan, Europe (European Union countries), and North America (United States and Canada) to foster closer cooperation among these core democratic industrialized areas of the world with shared leadership responsibilities in the wider international system.”
Their mission statement also includes nuanced hints at globalization of decision making for the world economy and the world governments, “The “growing interdependence” that so impressed the founders of the Trilateral Commission in the early 1970s is deepening into ‘globalization.” (http://www.trilateral.org/about.htm)
Reading the mission statement without context can be too ambiguous to interpret, but keeping in mind their stress on private citizens from these major industrial nations becoming increasingly involved in global affairs, both economic and political, hints at a possibility of a global governmental body, known as the New World Order.
“Writing in his 1964 book with no apologies, senator Barry Goldwater said, ‘The Trilateral Commission is intended to be the vehicle for multinational consolidation of the commercial and banking interests by seizing control of the political government of the United States. The Trilateral Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power political, monetary, intellectual and ecclesiastical. What the Trilateral Commission intends is to create a worldwide economic power superior to the political governments of the nation states involved. As managers and creators of the system, they will rule the future.”(The Obama Deception)
The loose link between these U.S. and foreign banking interests supporting Obama and the Trilateral commission starts with their mission statement as well, “The members of the Trilateral Commission are about 400 distinguished leaders in business, media, academia, public service (excluding current national Cabinet Ministers), labor unions, and other non-governmental organizations from the three regions. The regional chairmen, deputy chairmen, and directors constitute the leadership of the Trilateral Commission, along with an Executive Committee including about 40 other members.”
Though this is a vague connection, it implicates that this commission is comprised of the wealthy elite in business, media, and public service. There is a more direct connection to the Obama administration, but first we must look at the second group in this tandem; the Bilderberg Group.
The Bilderberg Group or Bilderberg Conference is an annual meeting of the elite in society and “is said to steer international policy from behind closed doors” (Emma Jane Kirby - BBC News) Due to the lack of an organized website (considering this isn’t as much an organization as it is an annual conference), general information about Bilderberg can be found on Wikipedia.
“Bilderberg issues executive decisions and prime directives to its sub directives for implementation. The trilateral commission takes the Bilderberg group agenda and executes it through regional ‘round table’ groups throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas. The Council on Foreign Relations serves as the managing ‘round table’ group in the United States sector. The Council on Foreign Relations has dominated every administration since the day s of FDR.” (The Obama Deception)
There are two general ways that President Obama could have satisfied the bankers and other financial backers of his campaign; one of which was the age-old tradition of patronage. Who would Obama appoint to notable political offices? The answer is obvious.
Secretary of The Treasury appointment Timothy Geithner, formerly head of the New York branch of the private Federal Reserve, is an attendee of the Bilderberg conferences and a member of the Trilateral Commission. Not only is he representative of these Wall Street interests, but he is also involved in these shady elitist organizations.
Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is a member of the Bilderberg Group, Council on Foreign Relations, and married to Trilateral Commission member Bill Clinton.
Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice is also a member of the Trilateral Commission.
National Security Advisor Gen. James L. Jones is a member of Bilderberg, C.F.R. and the Trilateral Commission.
Deputy National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon is a member of the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign relations.
State Department Special Envoy and famed foreign policy ‘expert’ Henry Kissinger (who has been previously accused along with Richard Nixon of drafting a peace for the Vietnam war in 1968 yet prolonging the war only to enact that same peace treaty several years later) is also a member of Bilderberg, Trilateral Commission, and the C.F.R.
Chairman, Economic Recovery Committee (an important position considering that some believe the bankers and these secret organizations orchestrated the economic collapse and also have a plan to set the economy back on track) Paul Volcker is part of the Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission, and the C.F.R.
Director of National Security Admiral Dennis C. Blair is a Bilderberg, Trilateral, and C.F.R. member.
Secretary of Defense for both the Bush and Obama administrations Robert Gates is a member of these three groups as well.
Presidential Advisor, former head of the Federal Reserve, and orchestrator of the derivatives bubble, which has been seen as a key part in the current economic recession, Alan Greenspan, is also a member of all three groups.
The list goes on and on in a pattern that most certainly cannot be seen as sheer coincidence.
During his campaign Obama claimed that he would not allow Wall Street lobbyists around his administration. The appointments he made to those in the three organizations mentioned above were a crafty way to provide patronage to those who funded him, and not be accused of going against his word and allowing lobbyists inside his administration.
It is also speculation and yet my opinion to note that many presidents provide favorable economic policies to those who help get them into the presidency. For example, look at Vice President Cheney, former C.E.O. of Blackwater, a mercenary corporation, who hired his former employer by giving them substantial contracts for the war in Iraq. Blackwater also provided Bush administrators with an alternative job in the private sector. (Scott Horton – Harpers Magazine)
If there aren’t any lobbyists for the top -level corporations and banking firms, how can they push forward their economic agendas?
This brings me to the second way, aside from political patronage, that Obama can repay those who helped finance his rise to the Presidency; the bailout.
It is important to note that this bailout theory does not extend to the automakers in Detroit whose C.E.O.’s accepted a salary of $1 for this year in order to channel the helpful taxpayer’s funds in the proper direction.
The bailout is a way for Obama to rid his administration of these lobbyists, still pay (directly, as seen with the bonuses these corporations are taking) those who got him in office, and keep his budget in tact by making the taxpayers pay for it. In this proposal, bankers would benefit because instead of favorable economic conditions, the profits from which would be spread throughout the company, they get a direct transfer payment of money, which would remain with the elite executives of the corporation thus giving more money to the powerful members. Once they get payment (equivalent of 4 years of favorable economic policy and campaign loans; $750 billon) the bankers can start turning the economy around and thus Obama looks like a hero; keeps lobbyists out of his administration (with the exception of the immediate patronage of the members of Bilderberg, Trilateral Commission and the C.F.R.) and the economy starts to rebound.
In addition to this brilliant scheme to a. possibly orchestrate the economic collapse, b. receive the bailout instead of economic policy that would benefit the lower level employees of each company, and c. to restore the economy and make President Obama live up to his glorified image, this whole economic collapse has experts talking about a number of Trilateral agenda’s including a North American currency known as the Amero, and the New World Order.
Experts and the general media are using the collapse of the economy and the weakness of the dollar on the global currencies markets to suggest the Trilateral idea of a more centralized and/or globalized currency and a global economic ‘federal reserve’ style organization.
What goes as an unanswered question is how these interest groups will deal with the growing public sentiment against AIG and those misusing the bailout money for executive purposes.
One theory is that Obama will publicly criticize and investigate these matters and the litigation will go on long enough until the public forgets about it due to our short attention span. Or perhaps there will be ‘justice’ in the form of a substantial tax on the bonuses or executive privileges that would assuredly include loopholes for the accused to maneuver through.
This has already been somewhat in use as the bailout provided a clause that forced those receiving the aid to disclose how they are using it, yet it conveniently did not include the major benefactors like AIG.
So instead of asking “why don’t these corporations learn from AIG and stop misusing our aid, are they stupid?”, we should be asking other, more useful questions, like “how is this all connected?” and “what is the real reason for the bailout?”
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